Round and Round We Go… Because Choice Trumps Change, Every Time

Recently I was asked ‘If you had one opportunity to change one thing in the world, what would that one thing be?’  Many things, people and situations came to mind but I realised I was thinking in terms of elimination rather than change.

I find that change is very achievable on the physical level, like changing countries, changing homes, schools, jobs, partners; but changing how we think, how we feel about things is very difficult. Changing a mind-set, a belief is very hard and changing a social construct is damn near impossible.

Choice trumps change every time

For example, everyone knows or they should be aware, that it is fundamentally wrong and unacceptable to judge someone based on their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious and political beliefs.

Millions of pounds have been spent on educating the universal population in diversity, equality and inclusivity. We all believe that the social construct has been changed and we now supposedly live in a more tolerant, more compassionate world. Yet, very recent statistics (yesterday in fact) show that hate crimes against the Jews and LBGT is on the rise. Again!

So not much changed there, despite the awareness programmes, the education and the laws that are in place to reflect the changes society has agreed to.  And the reason the hate crimes against Jews and LBGT are on the rise? because it is what people choose to do despite the belief that we as a society and individually have changed our mind set and the social construct.

It seems that every time the world is in crisis (which is practically all the time, lately), the hate crimes against these two populations rises. It is a case where choice trumps change; because  ultimately, it is the choices we make, consciously and subconsciously, individually, as a society and as a community,  that matter.

But there is one thing we cannot change and we have no choice in

We are all facing the same identical exit, no exception…All of us – regardless of who or what we are, what we believe in, what we fight for – we will all get old, our bodies and minds will slow down and then we will die. Every single one of us.

That time, between the first breath we all must take to start life to the last time we exhale, is a reflection of the choices we make every single day. 

Labels Are For Jars

From random dialogues, conversations and thoughts comes insight, reasoning, awareness and an opportunity to share and connect. For example, a casual remark on the Starbucks Caramel Frappuccino led to this random dialogue on labels… via Beyoncé, gays, equality (or lack of), hate crimes and Oprah. 
Towards the end of the article, Silva Neves, a good friend and a psychotherapist at The Hudson Centre gives his professional insight on the conversation. (It's always good to have an expert on board)

                    Labels Are For Jars

Setting…long drive to Essex to see family with The Boy.
Stop at Starbucks to pick up coffee… Carmel Frappuccinos.
Driving on the A20. Beyoncé plays in the background. Sipping the coffee or rather the frappucino.
And then the remark that triggered this random dialogue… “Starbucks makes good coffee. But why do they need to give coffee such fancy names? Coffee is just coffee, isn’t it?”

Which leads to…it's funny how we tend to emphasise that which makes people different. You mean like Beyoncé is referred to as a “Black singer/performer versus a singer/performer’
Or “ a Muslim terrorist versus terrorist”
Or "a gay marriage versus a marriage”
Or “ women owned business versus a business”
Or “a gay man versus a man”

Which leads to …how many people go round introducing himself or herself by their sexual identity and gender as in “Hi, I am a white heterosexual man or woman”? How many times have you heard Madonna or Katy Perry being referred to as white singers/performers? Never! And why is it ok to say ‘women owned business’ or ‘minority owned business’ but we never say a male owned business or a white owed business?

Which leads to… the media who perpetuate this practice (or began it) since every report in the paper will highlight that the person involved is gay, Black, Asian, Muslim, Jewish, disabled, and will also refer to their age, race and socio economic status. However they rarely, if ever, mention that the person is a white male, middle class, heterosexual and Christian.

Which leads to… the sham that is equality, that mainstay of our society, that word that is casually thrown around by anyone who wants to be seen as politically correct and that word that strikes fear into HR departments and politicians.
Equality = acceptance, yet as a rule we do not accept that which is not our “norm”. Mentally (subconsciously or not) we refuse to unconditionally accept that which does not accurately reflect or represent us and our beliefs, our values, our sexual orientation, our religion and our culture.

Which leads to… hate crimes. In an age where equality and tolerance is on everyone’s agenda, hate crimes are on the rise. Now that’s ironic. In 2014, the statistics are staggering with over 80,000 hate crimes being committed against race, sexual orientation, disability and religion. The Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime (London) Stephen Greenlaigh sums up why hate crimes happen, “However far too often people become targets of hate crimes simply because of who they are or what they look like”. Seriously? Simply because people look or act different they should expect to be beaten up, vilified, marginalised and bullied.

Which leads to… being authentic. Oprah preaches that everyone needs to be their authentic self. If only we lived in a perfect world, Oprah! Well, it paid off for her, as evidenced in her now famous quote “I had no idea that being your authentic self could make me as rich as I've become. If I had, I'd have done it a lot earlier”. However for many, the journey to their authentic self is filled with obstacles, heartbreak, despair, suffering and they may never arrive.

Which leads to… “I don’t like saying I am gay because the minute I do, something shifts, sometimes it is only a very very tiny shift but a shift nonetheless. And from that moment on I am labelled. My sexual preference defines me and who I am and what I do.”

Which leads to…“Why do I have to be defined by the labels society feels it needs to give me? Labels that they (society) made up and that they use to define who I am and what I am. I know who I am, I don’t need a label”.

Which leads to… “ Labels are for jars. People are not jars. I don’t need a label”.

Which leads us back to that random beginning..”Starbucks does have good coffee”. Agreed!

Silva’s insight to the conversation… “I get that, in a perfect world, labels are only for jars. I also agree that in our world today, equality is a sham. And true equality would make the world a better place.
However, the psychology of human beings is quite different. From our very first moment in this world we discriminate. A baby discriminates between the voices of his/her mother to those of strangers. The baby will decide whom to smile to and whom to scream at, based on what is familiar to him/her. Why? For survival!
Human beings are wired to survive. Although mostly unconscious, the survival instinct, present from birth, is one of the most primal inbuilt mechanisms in our brain.
We, as human beings, like what is familiar and fear what is not.
We like what looks like us and fear what looks different from us.
So, putting labels on things, and people, make us feel safe.
‘This person looks very different to me, wearing strange clothes and eating unknown food. But it is OK, because this person is Black African and therefore I feel safe because I know what it is that is different, and I don’t feel threatened’.

Labelling a Muslim terrorist makes us feel safe because we can dissociate from it, and say: ‘it is them, not me’.
Labelling a gay man makes the heterosexual population feel safe. ‘They are different, but it is ok, we know why, they are gay, so I’m safe, I don’t have to question myself.’

Also, if we want to be very particular, one can argue that a Starbucks coffee is not just coffee, it is coffee that has the particular flavour of Starbucks. When we say ‘Starbucks coffee’ we know we will not get Costa coffee.
A gay person needs to have the survival instinct switched on because of so much homophobia that still exists. Whether we want to admit it to ourselves or not, a gay person continuously picks up messages about the world around them in order to evaluate what/ where is safe or not.
Currently there are so many subtle and not so subtle messages coming from Muslim and Christian communities wanting gay people dead. Based on those messages, a gay person’s survival instinct will be discriminatory…for the sake of safety. Therefore, subconsciously, it will require getting to know a Christian/Muslim person before fully trusting them. This is not the case if a gay man meets another gay man in Old Compton Street (sameness = safety).
Society feels the need to label people because, although labelling can and does have a lot of negative consequences, it also has one major advantage: safety. And the need for safety outweighs the need to be equal.
I also dream of a world where labels are just for jars. And because I am optimistic, I would like to believe it is possible. I think that the way we can achieve this as society is by education and experience.
If we all allowed ourselves to experience the world of others that are not like us, perhaps in time, we can re-wire our brain and reduce our inbuilt mechanism of safeguarding.
But there is a long way to go. Most groups stick together in area clusters, not engaging with the rest of society. I have met many Muslim people who have never left Tower Hamlets.I have met many gay people who refuse to step beyond Soho. 
We don’t mix enough. The multi-cultural society is also a sham. We are not mutli-cultural. We live side by side but we don’t really interact, engage and talk to each other enough.

Of course, I am not saying that everybody stays in clusters. There are many people who do mix comfortably with other cultures. But, in my opinion, there is not enough of us doing so.
And there is also too many groups that promote the death of others. 

Unfortunately, these groups do have a loud voice. Some hide behind religious ideas, as seen repeatedly in the case of homophobes.
When there is a step forward in equality, such as gay marriage, there is a big increase in those voices, trying to fight it, which, in turn, increases our inbuilt safeguarding mechanism, instead of reducing it.
Change, however, always starts with conversations such as this one, between The Boy and his mother. The cynical part of me does not believe that I will live long enough to see a world where ‘coming out’ is not necessary anymore, with true equality and acceptance of all, as one human race. But the hopeful part of me wishes that The Boy (who is much younger than me) will see that world in his lifetime”.

** Silva Neves is a qualified psychosexual, relationship and couple's therapist. He specialises in working with couples and individuals who experience difficulties in their intimate relationships and sexuality.

 How do you feel about labels?

Share your random thoughts, you never know where they will lead to...

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Born a girl and happy that way. The empowerment of women - Part 2

Boy, girl, female, and male, woman and man- every single one of us is assigned a gender at birth.

Within seconds of a baby being born, the doctor or midwife announces ‘It’s a boy’ or ‘it’s a girl’, and your gender identity is technically set for the rest of your life.  

Metaphorically, from that moment on until you die, you will be put either in the blue group or the pink group. The gender you have been assigned will to a large extent, determine your academic path, your career, your business and personal interactions and relationships and even society’s expectation of you.

And for most of us this is a non-issue, as we never have a need to question our gender identity.  We are conditioned from infancy, as we lay in our blue or pink world, to assimilate and socialise in to our gender.  

As women, our social feminisation is deep-rooted and instinctive.  According to Scientific America, sex differences in empathy emerge in infancy and persist throughout development, though the gap between adult women and men is larger than between girls and boys.  Gender socialisation is the more focused form of socialisation; it is how children of different sexes are socialised into their gender roles.

So, we grow from girl babies, to little girls, to young women to women , without giving our gender identity a thought.

Yet there are thousands of babies, who are born biologically male or biologically female, but as they grow up, it slowly becomes apparent that the birth announcement ‘it’s a boy’ should have been ‘it’s a girl’ or vice versa.   

Gender identity disorder or gender dysphoria, is a conflict between a person's actual physical gender and the gender that person identifies himself or herself as. It is not known what causes transgenderism or whether it is physical or biological mental, emotional or social.  But for a lot of them, it is a lifetime of frustration, isolation, and heartache.  Today female hormones and gender reassignment surgery are more accessible and readily available for Trans women.  And so every year thousands of Male to Female (MTF) Trans women relinquish their masculinity and undergo extreme surgery to remove their male parts in order to complete the physical transition to womanhood.

It is understandable, that for the duration of the transition, for these ladies it is about achieving the female physical appearance, so that they can take their place as a woman in society.  We live, after all, in a society where the physical appearance is crucial to acceptance.

Over the years, the transgender political movement has taken huge steps forward and have fought long and hard to ensure human and civil liberties for Trans people. It is only right that their human rights to health care, employment and housing are not only recognised but respected and enforced. No one should have to live in fear for their lives and be subjected to harassment and persecution, simply because of who they are.  If we all accept that while ‘the world is not comprehensible, but it is embraceable: through the embracing of one of its beings’ (source: Martin Buber), we can make the world a much nicer place for every one of us.

Having lived through the process of a MTF transition, I appreciate what a Herculean effort it takes to transition from a male energy to a feminine one. I witnessed and empathised with the overwhelming need to be true to oneself; the constant struggle and fight for the basic right to exist and live.  I admire and respect their courage, resilience, and determination and the strong belief in oneself that they possess.

I am also intrigued with the similarities and disparities between women and Trans women and  the political and social variances, particularly in the context of the empowerment of women.

In a previous blog I talked about the Feminine Power Course that I attended which is about harnessing the creative energies of life and bringing balance to the feminine and masculine aspects of life.  So it is interesting to see that there is a sub-group of Trans women who have lived all their lives as a white, middle class male, typically got married and had children and usually worked in a very male dominated industry. Around middle age, they decide they want to go through a Male to Female transition. Yet pre, post and during transition they continue to operate within the male paradigm utilising their male traits and characteristics, (possibly because they have already successfully proven themselves as men and feel most comfortable there).

 Although it also perpetuates the dogma that business is based on the male energy since the male business model is the only one that is in existence, it seems to me that there is much we can learn from these women!

Born a girl, Became a woman 

Life for a woman, a female, is not easy even when you are born a girl. It is after all, only in the last 50 or 60 years since women, en masse for the first time actually began to awaken with an impulse to actualise their potentials beyond being wives and mothers. 

While we have come a long way in the last 100 years and the glass ceilings are showing definite cracks, we are still living in a 5000 year old patriarchal society, and still a long way from achieving  gender equality socially, economically and politically.  The success of the empowerment of women, professionally, politically, socially and personally relies heavily on women supporting women.

It follows that the empowerment of women movement has to be inclusive of all women - irrespective of how we became women, through birth or transition and regardless of sexual orientation, economics, age, nationality, culture or religion.

We are all, after all, women.